Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!
We've all heard the Shakespearean quote, "The lady protesteth too much methinks." When Trump isn't busy declaiming the utter nothingness of his relationship with Russia, he is openly refusing to answer a direct question about same. Trump was asked at his last press conference a few days ago, "Can you stand here today, once and for all, and say that no one at all connected to you or your campaign, had any contact with Russia leading up to or during the presidential campaign?” Trump did not answer the question.
After stammering something totally incomprehensible about Hillary and a re-set button [check the NYT transcript, it's there] Trump said, "But Russia and other countries — and other countries, including China, which has taken total advantage of us economically, totally advantage of us in the South China Sea by building their massive fortress, total. Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, all countries will respect us far more, far more than they do under past administrations." Trump ended the press conference just then and reporters were not able to follow up on Trump's Russian connection, although some pursued him to the elevator calling out questions on that topic.
Columnist Frank Rich in New York Magazine said:
Let’s not pretend we don’t know what is happening here. There is evidence that Donald Trump and his administration-in-formation are partially, perhaps wholly, beholden to the Kremlin and/or those Russian oligarchs in its thrall. This is why Trump refused to answer that question about contacts with Russia during the campaign — and why he’ll lie about it when he finally feels he must muster some kind of answer. His symbiosis with Russia is also why he will never release his tax returns, for what other reason could there be at this point except that they reveal the Russian financial ties he denies? After all, we already know the other embarrassments contained in those returns — that he hasn’t paid taxes for years, that he practices no actual philanthropy, and that his businesses are in a perennial waltz with bankruptcy, fraud, and failure.
No, Russia is the big story here. The elephant in the room is a bear.
Contrary to what Trump might wish you to believe, Russian connections abound in his world, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Rex Tillerson, and Carter Page, to name just a few. Before Trump went to the podium at the press conference incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer stood there and told the group, "Carter Page is an individual who the president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign. [(?) again, this is a transcript of a Trump press conference] Paul Manafort has adamantly denied any of this involvement."
Fine. Carter Page, the Trump campaign announced last year, was appointed a Trump foreign-policy adviser and subsequently was cited by name by Trump himself in an interview with the Washington Post editorial board in March. On these facts it stands to reason that Trump and Page are at least acquainted. Paul Manafort may adamantly deny involvement in anything he wishes. Nevertheless, The New York Times reported this last August:
"... a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine advised by Manafort designated $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments for him between 2007-12.[...] Trump's ties to Russia go beyond business deals. His former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had connections with Russia that go much deeper, including to Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's former president who fled the country. Yanukovych, who is now in Russia, "called upon Vladimir Putin to send Russian troops into Ukraine," according to a White House statement.
A lawsuit filed by Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko describes Manafort as a "key adviser to President Yanukovich and other Ukraine political figures since approximately 2003."
So Manafort was simultaneously a key advisor to President Yanukovich and to Donald Trump. Juggling multiple balls in the air is mere child's play, as well, for Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson who during his Senate confirmation process stated that he had "not discussed Russia [sic] policy" with Trump. Nevertheless, Tillerson does have a "Russia policy" and Salon reported that when Tillerson was head of Exxon Mobile that, "Exxon Mobil lobbied on multiple occasions against the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014. Tillerson himself even bragged to reporters in 2014 that “our views are being heard at the highest level.” Undoubtedly Tillerson was right, especially considering that he was a recipient of the Russian Order of Friendship Award in 2013. Then there's Michael Flynn, who has appeared on Russian television and also been photographed sitting next to Vladimir Putin at dinner and who is, not surprisingly, another Trump appointee, and in the area of national security, no less. Flynn reportedly phoned Russia after President Obama announced sanctions against Russia. Trump inadvertently corroborated knowledge of that phone call when he tweeted the next day that Putin was, “holding off on any action. I always said that he was smart!”
Again, from Frank Rich’s New York Magazine article:
Trump has made no bones about repeatedly hiring fellow Putin sycophants, whether his former campaign chief Paul Manafort, the incoming National Security Adviser, Mike Flynn, or the secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson. When the heroic aviator Charles Lindbergh was awarded a medal, the Service Cross of the German Eagle, by Hermann Goering “by order of der Führer” before World War II, it helped make him persona non grata in the FDR White House. When Tillerson received a Russian Order of Friendship Award from Putin, Trump regarded it as an incentive to hire him.
How this will play out once Trump is inaugurated is impossible to fathom. We have a president-elect who trusts Putin and Julian Assange more than he does America’s intelligence agencies, whom he has compared to the Nazis. Perhaps Trump’s only real goal is to grab money from deep Russian pockets as fast as he can in opaque business deals managed by his sons while he’s in office. Even so, it’s entirely possible that he and Flynn will help facilitate Putin’s own political aims in exchange — all the while claiming that their motive is merely to band with Russia in “fighting ISIS.”
What’s clear is that we are not going to get straight answers to any Russian questions. Even before Trump took over the lectern at his Wednesday press conference, his press spokesman, Sean Spicer, unleashed a preemptive lie about still another Trump-Kremlin connection by claiming that Trump “does not know” Carter Page, an investment banker who was investigated by the F.B.I. last summer for suspicions of private dealings with Russian leaders....Both Page and Trump, by the way, have used the term “witch hunt” to describe any attempts to investigate their Russian dealings — the same term used by the Kremlin to fend off evidence that Putin manipulated the American election. Perhaps Page and Trump have the same Kremlin handler, whether or not it is the former KGB agent Putin himself.
This is the major story in American politics right now. If the story of Trump’s Russian connection can be cracked and all of the skeletons removed from the closet, we will know the answer to questions like how much Trump is actually worth, why he won't release his income tax records and last but certainly not least, the full nature and extent of the role that Russia played in deciding the outcome of the 2016 election in our country.
It’s been opined that Trump’s alleged actions in Russia aiding and abetting hostile foreign actors to hack the DNC constitute treason. Treason is certainly an impeachable offense. No one is saying bring charges of treason based on guesswork or assumption. But in the enormous pile of circumstantial evidence which is the Russian hacking story, this much is certain: one way or the other, democracy has been sabotaged. Whether it was sabotaged by a belligerent foreign power like Russia indulging in what is (if it can be proven conclusively) an act of war against the United States; or whether it has been sabotaged by the overweaning ambition of a man of low moral character willing to sell out his country in order to gain his own selfish ends for egotistical and monetary gain, the answer to exactly how democracy has been sabotaged is to be found by examining the evidence on Trump’s and his colleagues’ actions in Russia. Only there will you find the answer to why 2016 was not an election year like every other election year, or why Trump is the Czar and Putin put him there. Look no farther, the Russian bear in the room is holding a smoking gun.